Essay Test: Is Emily poetic or self-centered?

The following essay was submitted to a highly selective university in response to the prompt: What is your favorite word and why.

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Emily.  E-M-I-L-Y. ylimE . I’m not a narcissist, but I love my name. Besides giving a definition of who I legally am, the word packs my entire existence into one proper noun. In five letters, three syllables and two and a half vowels, I can articulate ME.

Historically speaking, I was named for my great-grandmother, whom I know only through a notebook-sized portrait hanging in my hallway at home. Eerily enough, we have exactly the same eyes, but beyond that, I think the similarities end. She buried four husbands.

Right now, “Emily” mean blue hair, poetry, a novel in progress, arguments with a little sister, forensics trophies, vegetarianism, Henry Taylor worship, political activism, textbooks, homemade clothes, washing dishes and sharing knock-knock jokes with battered women at the shelter, month-long backpacking expeditions in Wyoming, hours spent idly patrolling the stacks at the library, afternoon tea and political debate with best friends, poetry readings at the bookstore, film projects for fun, A Capella practice, and a fender bender in the senior parking lot.

The other night I watched a documentary on longshoremen.

“I want to be a longshoreman,” I said.

“Um,” my mother said, “okay.”

Emily the Longshoreman.

Last week it was Antarctic scientist (and I  haven’t lost sight of that one, either).

Emily the renowned expert on Emperor Penguins, Emily Congressional Lobbyist for Women’s Rights. Emily the Librarian. Emily the Composer. Emily, Author of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Accord in Iambic Pentameter. Emily Who Climbed Ama Dablam. Emily the Owner of That Great little Tea Shop. Emily Who Speaks Punjab. Emily the Playwright. Emily…Emily Toyota-Sushi, Legendary Writer of Haikus.

So maybe “Emily” hasn’t settled itself into a compound noun yet; it’s still a relatively young word. But there will always be Emily the Writer. In this sense of the word, “Emily” means a lover of language and an addict of paragraphs, chapters, stanzas, rhymes, verses, headings, footnotes, grocery lists. “Emily” is the word I’ve been looking for to describe that moment when you put precisely the right sequence of words together, and you lean back in your chair, and think, my God, I think I did it this time.

Emily the Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author and Legendary…

Sometimes I can’t help myself.

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Rate this essay from 1-5 with 5 being the highest mark. What rating did you give it and why?

Would you categorize the writer's choice of her name her favorite word a risky approach to the question? 

Does the writer come across as too focused on herself?  Why or why not?

Do you think this student is creative? Defend your answer?

What 3 words would you use to describe this student?

Does this essay predict academic success in a highly selective university? Defend your answer.

Would you want to have this student as your roommate?

In a previous blog entry I posted a recommendation for Emily from her school. Here is a quote from it: 

One of the ways in which I have gotten to know Emily is by being her creative writing teacher.  She treats writing like a child. She loves it even when it does not cooperate. She cares for it, makes it her center and gives herself over to it. She listens to the advice of others, yet maintains her won motherly perspective; she will change her work if the advice is sound, but has enough motherly stronghold over her writing to know when the writing does not warrant some changes. Because she nurtures it so, her work is poignant and precise. She chooses words intrinsic beauty and depth of meaning. She revises with a keen eye, always looking for ways to help the writing grow. Perhaps the greatest complement I can give her writing is that it has inspired me when I have been in writing draughts

If you had read this recommendation first would it have altered your view of this essay in any way? Are you sure?